Wireless networks rely on a large number of individual base stations or cells to provide high capacity wireless services over large coverage areas, such as market areas (e.g., cities), surrounding residential areas (e.g., suburbs, counties), highway corridors and rural areas. Continuous radio connectivity across these large coverage areas is accomplished via user mobility from one base station to others as the user traverses the network's operating area. High reliability mobility in mobile wireless networks minimizes the number of dropped calls or other abnormal discontinuations of radio service to the supported users.
Modern broadband wireless access technologies, such as the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Long Term Evolution (LTE), and so on, rely on the reuse of a finite number of codes, which are used by mobile devices to differentiate signals originating from different base stations in a network. These codes, such as 3G scrambling codes or 4G PCI codes, are reused multiple times across wide area networks, often with the same code being allocated to multiple base stations in the networks.
Because multiple cells in a network often share a single code (e.g., a single code is reused across multiple cells), uncertainty may arise as to which cell is an actual transmitter of the code when a wireless device detects the code (e.g., via a signal strength measurement or signal quality measurement associated with the code). This uncertainty leads to ambiguity within the network, which can degrade the performance of automated network processes performed within the network. For example, Automated Neighbor Relations (ANR) management processes may receive ambiguous or uncertain cell identification information as input information into running ANR processes, leading to sub-optimal provisioning of cells within the network, among other drawbacks.